Chapter Text
When Ichiro comes back to his senses—from… from far away, somehow, it feels like—it’s to the noise of car horns impatiently honking and someone telling him with urgency that the light’s green, once, then twice. He blinks his eyes into focus as best as he can and realizes he’s in a car, and he’s on the road, holding up an intersection. That he’s certain he was somewhere else literally a second ago makes him feel disoriented as shit.
But nothing makes him feel quite as disoriented as finally, finally recognizing Saburo’s voice, telling him a third time “—Light’s green!” before Saburo’s audibly clicking his tongue and then deliberately kicking the back of his seat: “Helloooo? Earth to Sama-nii!”
Ichiro, purely on instinct, finally steps on the gas to drive ahead, just so he’d stop causing a traffic jam. Also on instinct, he tries to turn around to make sure he heard it right: what the fuck did Saburo just say? Sama-nii…? But something just as disorienting interrupts: Jiro is reaching over to push back at him: “Dude, what the hell?? Eyes on the road, Aohitsugi!!”
Then, all at once, it dawns on Ichiro that he’s back–but only because they think he isn’t. They think he’s still Samatoki. Hell, Ichiro’s still disoriented, because what was that about? Ichiro’s familiar with Saburo’s sarcastic yet fond tone, but to hear him use that with Sama-nii…? Plus Jiro didn’t seem to mind being touchy as is, patting and poking at his cheek teasingly even if it was Aohitsugi…?
That aside for a second, he’s been expecting to just wake up one day and be back in his body for good, so for it to happen out of the blue like this and possibly be dangerous… He remembers he’s just closed his eyes to carefully shampoo his (Samatoki’s) hair in a shower in an apartment an hour away from Ikebukuro, then he opens his eyes and suddenly he’s driving…? This shit not making sense is whatever, but this could have ended poorly–that guy definitely has shampoo in his eyes now, damn.
Fortunately, for Ichiro, he eventually does get his bearings back, automatically following the GPS without checking the destination first, because this familiarity is comforting in itself, in a way. Once he realizes that this is their yorozuya’s van, he’s all good. His seatbelt is even on properly. Are his brothers’?
He looks up at the rearview mirror to check, and is relieved to register that they are. Odd that no one’s riding shotgun next to him when they usually fight over it, though… Then again, nonchalantly making Samatoki act like their taxi driver is pretty in-character for those two; Saburo’s busy playing some game on his tablet and Jiro’s reading a newly released comic magazine.
Ichiro wonders where they were going. It doesn’t look like they’re going out for some job request–in fact, Jiro and Saburo are wearing casual clothes that Ichiro doesn’t recognize. He’s about to confirm where the GPS is actually leading them, but his eyes catch his own reflection on their way down, and one of his hands flies from the steering wheel to his ear.
He has studs in, in his old piercings. Ichiro’s heart jumps–did Samatoki find his old ones? No, he couldn’t have; Ichiro made sure it was hidden some place no one could easily find, not his brothers, not even himself. The closer he looks, the clearer it gets that these are a different pair, with different stones, because they’re a different shade of red… Blood orange, like that bastard’s eyes. Ichiro glances down at the rest of his outfit, too–a necklace with a silver pendant, dark leather, dark denim, boots he’s sure he didn’t own.
Ichiro wants to try to analyze his kid brothers’ outfits more, too, but he’s taken by their darling smiles and humming instead, and Ichiro notices that they’re in an exceedingly good mood. They don’t appear to mind at all that Samatoki’s taking them out like this–they even look excited, like they’ve been looking forward to this. Ichiro bites his tongue. His brothers are happy to be around Samatoki, and his chest hurts; he never thought he’d see the day.
He finally checks the GPS after being prompted to turn. They were on their way to a small amusement park. One with a big ferris wheel and a roller coaster and a view of the bay, one Ichiro’s been debating on taking his family to because it was in enemy territory, in Yokohama, as if that ever really mattered. He didn’t think that the division’s leader would welcome them there. What happened while Samatoki was with them? For them to warm up to him this much? to be glad to get to spend time with him…? Ichiro never thought…
At the next red light, Ichiro stops fidgeting with his earlobe to bring Samatoki’s phone out of his pocket. As he considers what to text him, he punches his own phone number in since his contact’s probably been deleted. Then he has to force himself to ignore another ache in his chest when he finds that his name does come up anyway- so he can start typing: They’re about to turn around and go home, they don’t need to go to Yokohama even if they’ve made it this far, they can exchange phones and wallets another day. Backspace. Jiro and Saburo probably still wanna go so they’re going anyway, even if it’s not with Samatoki anymore… He won’t even bother getting changed out of this weird getup Samatoki put on him… Backspace.
The light turns yellow. Hastily, Ichiro types in the next thing he comes up with, and it doesn’t cross his mind that Samatoki–after getting shampoo out of his eyes and getting right out of the sower–might be pretty surprised, too, to get a message on Ichiro’s phone from a contact still faithfully labeled Samatoki-san. That’s because as soon as he hits send, a reply comes instantly–no, it comes at the exact same time; it’s most likely that they both thought to do this right now, right this moment.
Ichiro can’t help smiling as the light turns green. Jiro and Saburo are grateful they don’t have to remind him to get going again, because it means they can be plain ecstatic, as they have been, that things are going just as they planned from the start; Ichiro spares them the details for now and tosses his phone on the empty passenger seat, leaving it on the messaging app where the two most recent text messages read:
( see you there? >
< see you there. )